The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic finale since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
